


Force, meet Object

by Iridogorgia



Category: No Country for Old Men (2007), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anton Chigurh has a job to do, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Jim is a Little Shit, Mary works for Jim, Psychopath versus Psychopath, Sexual Content, and Irene is in the way
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2019-10-09 07:59:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17403080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iridogorgia/pseuds/Iridogorgia
Summary: He’s not a normal man, Irene Adler.  Your tricks won’t work on him.  But you’re not a normal woman, and maybe his tricks won’t work on you.





	1. Inertia

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been on such a Javier Bardem kick lately, and I really wanted to pit Anton Chigurh against someone you might not expect him to not shoot immediately, and the idea of him sitting down with Irene Adler really got my attention. Let’s just pretend he’s been transported to some time between 2008 and 2010, yeah? Suspension of disbelief and all that.
> 
> This is set before the show, when Jim and Irene have barely started any kind of working relationship.

“Kate,” Irene sang, running her boar bristle brush through her loose curls, “has the package arrived yet?”  She hummed a little melody and extended the column of her throat, laying the dark of her hair against it. She ran her eyes over the velvet case of jewels she'd set out the previous night, eyes lighting upon two pairs: a set of pearl and opal dangling clusters, bright flashes of color against creamy white trailing down to her jawline, and a pair of cushion-cut labradorite studs.  The near black with hints of neon blue hidden in the folds... lovely. She slipped them onto her lobes.

Kate came up, struggling under the weight of the small briefcase, and she raised one pale eyebrow at Irene.  "What, exactly, is in here?”

Irene fluttered her eyelashes in the mirror, “Now now, darling, is that a question that we ask in this household?”

“Not usually,” Kate said, setting the briefcase down with a heavy thunk, looking back at Irene doubtfully.  Not even her exposed bosom could distract her lusty assistant, how interesting. “But whatever’s in here, it’s making a strange sound,” she continued, “almost like-”

“Please,” Irene said patiently, holding up her hairbrush, “do not finish that sentence.  I don’t need to know what’s in it, I was specifically directed to _not_ know what the contents are.  Now that it’s here, however, I need you to prepare.  We’re going to have a guest.”

Kate paused, blinking at her slowly, “What sort of guest?  The kind where I need to prepare tea or a triage center?”

Irene smiled dreamily, “Both just to be sure, my dear, both.  A little bird sent me a message,” she gestured at her phone, “that our guest is going to be very _interesting._ ”

The blonde woman frowned viciously, “Is it that Moriarty fellow that you saw last week?  I know you said he had work for you, something fun, but this is sooner than I anticipated.  He seemed more… dangerous than your usual clientele. Be careful.”

“Honestly,” Irene said, carefully patting on moisturizer, “I think it’s a test.  Dear Jim is sometimes into acquisitions, this is one of those. Someone is going to try to get it back, and I need to waylay them.  Not that you really need to know that to _do your job_ , my dear.”  She looked in the mirror, her face smoothing out into The Woman, and she raised both brows.  “Tea, a triage kit, and hide _that_ where I don't know where it is.  And then leave, Kate. Discreetly.”

Before she moved entirely out the door frame, she raked her eyes over Irene’s back, “Are you wearing your battle armor for this one?”

She hummed and started lining her eyes with near-black, “Of course, sweetling, it is the only acceptable answer to such a situation.”  A delicate press here, a bit of a smudge there, and she was nearly done.

“Lucky man,” she whispered, winking at her boss.

“Or woman,” she sang back, returning the flirty wink, “Wait for my signal to return.  If you don’t get one within a day, go underground.” She resumed her routine as Kate quietly moved through the house.  She hummed louder to avoid hearing where her darling assistant was hiding the suitcase, only Kate knew where all the hiding spots were in this place.  Safer that way.

When she came back an hour later with a tea service, Irene was primped and polished, her hair up in curls and waves, pinned up artfully and hiding four extremely thin, long, sharp throwing needles.  She’d gotten them in Japan several years ago. The native word for them was ‘fukibari’ when used with a blowgun, ‘senbon’ when used alone. A master archer, who specialized in the blowgun, called a ‘fukiya’, had given her lessons during her stay.  Irene hadn’t been shocked by her own competence with it, but he’d been delighted and aroused. She’d known what he liked, and he was more than happy to gift her one of his own sets when their time to part came. The blowgun was unwieldy and better for someone in hiding, someone unnoticeable like Kate, but the needles themselves had proven an effective distraction more than once.  Half of them had a paralytic coating, which she kept on the right side. If she could get a scratch near an eye, it worked very quickly to weaken the lid and provide her time to make an escape.

Kate, who was past blushing when she saw Irene in her battle armor, still pinked prettily when Irene’s intense attention fell on her.  Irene held up her lipstick and tilted her head. “Nobody gets a crisp edge like you, Kate.”

She came closer, reaching out to take the tube from her, but Irene caught her wrist gently, pulling her in with one hand to press her own, unpainted mouth against Kate’s.  The blonde sucked in a breath before parting her own soft lips to kiss her employer back, angling her head and being very, very careful to not touch her hair. Irene languidly touched her jawline, her neck, and ran her sharp fingernails over her collarbone, hard enough to draw up a raised red line that made her whimper, “I’m sorry for making you worry,” she murmured against Kate’s panting mouth, “I’ll make it up to you later.”  She pressed one more chaste kiss to her mouth before pulling back and releasing her wrist.

Kate sighed, trembling, before licking her lips and steadying herself, “Do try to survive, ma’am.  You’d make a pretty corpse, but I’d be rather put out to have to search for new employment.”

Kate was quick and efficient, able to apply the lurid red to her mouth neatly and evenly in half the time it would have taken Irene herself.

“Thank you, love,” and her eyes were bright and blue, and she pressed one kiss to the inside of Kate’s wrist as she drew away, leaving a mark.  “Now, go.”

Kate left without another word, and Irene stood, languidly stretching her naked body, and tidied up.

 

* * *

 

The guest that showed up first was not who Irene was expecting.

She was dressed entirely in black, with short blonde curls that poked out from under a knit cap and a serious expression on her face.  Her boots were covered with disposable paper slippers, the type you might see in a hospital, and Irene didn’t move a muscle as she swept the room.  She looked in all of the corners, under the furniture, behind the curtains, and ran her fingers over the walls and bookcases.

In her hands, attached to a strap that went across her chest, was a very powerful rifle.  At her waist, a pair of handguns. Who knew what else was in the littering of pouches and pockets on her person, with her tactical vest and cargo pants.

“Are you who I’m waiting for?”  Irene raised one eyebrow and drew one knee up to convey false modesty.  Cover one part, expose another. Draw the eye. This woman, however, didn’t even look at her.

“I’m a gift,” she said shortly, looking out of the window, “from our mutual acquaintance.  Emphasis on the ‘M’.”

Irene’s eyes lit up, and she didn’t move, but a dangerous smile slid it’s way across her face, “Did dear Jim send me a bodyguard?  Oh my, I’m delighted to meet whatever storm is coming my way.”

Finally, the other woman met her gaze evenly.  “You don’t understand. You should be frightened, Miss Adler.  My employer isn’t concerned because he’s never _heard_ of this man.  I’m a little surprised, but not too much.  The man coming your way and I are in the same business, and he has a… reputation.  He’s more machine than person, his own moral code is very twisted, and none of your little tricks are going to work on him.  He’s a psychopathic killer, a _real_ one, and I need to know you understand that he’s not one of your clients.  My employer wants to know how you’re going to handle this, and I’m here to ensure that you don’t die.  I’m not confident in my role, so don’t make my job harder by being stupid.”

Irene noticed instantly that she didn’t say anything about getting injured, and filed that little bit away for later.  “Well, I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.” Neither one of them held out a hand. “Do you know the name of the man come to see me?”

“Yes,” the bodyguard looked at her with eyes far too old for her face, and Irene had the urge to tie her to her bed frame and make her forget her past, her worries, with a torrent of pleasure.  She pushed the desire away and leaned forward.

She didn’t say anything, just smiled with a hint of her sharp white teeth.

The other woman sighed and whispered a name that Irene repeated, savoring the syllables in on her tongue, and she murmured afterward, “What an unusual name, where is it from?”

The blonde snorted, “Nobody knows.  Or anyone who did is long dead.”

Irene laid back, winking at the blonde, “Maybe I’ll found out what he likes and worm it out of him. I’m very persuasive.”

The blonde shook her head, her face grim, turned on her heel, and padded softly out of the room.

Irene smiled into the emptiness.  It couldn’t be long now.

 

* * *

 

Five minutes later, just as the tea was starting to cool past the point of acceptability, she heard the soft shuffle of boots on her hardwood stairs.

She allowed herself one wide grin before she schooled her face into something much more impassive.  Irene perched gracefully on the chaise, her delicate ankles and slim, pedicured feet covering her lower modesty while her pale knees blocked the view of her chest.  Best not to shock him too badly at first, she thought about the bodyguard’s assessment that the man was a ‘machine’. Even a machine, occasionally, needs attention, she thought freely.  Servicing.

There was a sound on her carpet, and she kept her expression neutral as her eyes flicked up to take him in.  He was tall, serious, dressed plainly in dark, well-fitting clothes, and he held a semiautomatic shotgun tightly.  His features were slightly asymmetric and very Spanish. His nose had been broken once or twice and set badly both times.  His eyes were dark and shuttered, and his mouth… she wanted to feel his bottom lip between her teeth. She made her sure smile was sharp.  If he was unsettled, he didn't show it. His hair was in an odd sort of bob and barely brushed his shoulders. There was a bit of a bang but swept to the side.  She thought, idly, that it was the perfect length to wind around her first as she made him scream. He wasn’t classically handsome, not by a long shot, his hair didn’t suit his face and his eyes were dead, but she knew she could make something flare to life inside of them.  She could _make_ him react, somehow, and the thought of it filled her belly with hot embers.

"Mr. Chigurh, is it?  A very interesting name, I’m curious to hear the story behind it.  I've been expecting you." His name felt like velvet in her mouth. She motioned deliberately to the chair opposite her, where a teacup was already waiting.  He didn’t move. She stood, uncaring of her nakedness, and was inwardly impressed when his expression didn’t even flinch. She took the teapot and added the leaves, swirling the water around thoughtfully.  She held the delicate porcelain handle and cocked her hip out as she mentally counted the minutes for it to properly steep. "Is it your first time in England?"

He stood stiffly in her doorway.  "This is not the usual reaction I get when someone knows who I am.  What I am. Most people beg when they see me," he said finally. His voice was very low, even, and deeply accented.  It made a shiver run up her spine and the hair on the back of her neck stand up. He ignored her inquiry entirely. Hated small talk, hated wasted words, but this… was new.

"Funny," her lips, painted that sinful red, pulled up into a smile, she looked at him through heavily painted lashes, still swirling the teapot, and purred, "The same thing happens for me.  Won't you please sit?" Her pale gaze flicked to the chair and she raised one perfectly shaped brow. She laid a small strainer over his teacup. Her hip cocked out and she let him see her eyes roving down his body.  His eyes stayed on her face.

He tilted his head, hair brushing one shoulder, and moved quietly to the chair.  She stepped back graciously as he settled in, looking around and gently adjusting the angle of the chair so he could see the windows and the door at the same time.  His shotgun went deliberately on his lap, resting across his thighs. He placed one finger on the trigger, pointing the barrel, with its overly large silencer, of it at her.  "Where is the briefcase?" He stared up at her as she came closer, holding the teapot with an elegant arch of her wrist, like a heron in the morning sun, and poured the perfect brew into his cup with nary a splash.  His eyes stayed on her face, still, even though the whole of her was on display. Irene was starting to feel threads of excitement, at the challenge, and fear, from the warnings of the other woman in her ear, ‘None of your little tricks are going to work on him.’

She clucked her tongue, setting the teapot back on the service and settling herself out on the chaise.  Long, languid, one knee raised and her hands occupying themselves with her own teacup. "Are we just getting down to business, then?"  She took a delicate sip, leaving behind the bloody impression of a kiss, and smiled at him. He didn't move, didn’t touch his own tea, and they sat in the tense tableau for several minutes before she sighed.  Irene set the cup on her side table and rested her temple on two of her fingers. Her breasts were dimpling in the cool room, and she amused herself by arching her back just enough to thrust the perky points into the air, and this time his eyes narrowed just a little bit.  She gave him a smile that didn't reach her eyes, "I was so hoping for some small talk. Find out a little bit more about you. Well,” she amended, “what you like."

He tilted his head and stared at her with his flat, dark gaze, limpid pools that reflected her own image back at her, "There's little dignity in delaying the inevitable.  You have been on this road, Miss Adler, your entire life, and now that I am here, it is at an end. Where is it?” His voice was hard and flat, and he was losing his patience, “I will not ask a third time."

Her eyes flicked over him, lingering on his lap, before she gave him a sly, flirtatious look, "Why don't you try to guess?"

“I don’t have to guess,” was his automatic reply, and he shifted the gun, just a little.  “I know where it is going to be. I just need to coax it there. Knowing its current location is helpful.  I know it is _here_ , but it would be a waste of my time to search this entire house when I have _you_ , who knows where it is hidden.”

Irene gave a throaty laugh, “Oh darling, we are so alike, you and I.  You want to know where a _thing_ is, so confident where it is going to _be_ , and I feel the same way about _you._ ”  He raised one eyebrow, but the rest of his face didn’t move.  “I know that now, you are in my chair. Later, you are going to be in my _bed._ ”  She purred the last and unfolded herself from the chaise, coming to stand over him.  For the first time, his eyes flicked over her body, and he slowly, very deliberately, tilted his head back to expose his throat and face to see her.  His skin was so much darker than hers, brown from years spent in the sun, and the muscles in his neck stood out starkly. His expression didn’t falter, but she noticed the strong lines of his legs, held so deliberately akimbo before, were suddenly tense.  So small, the signs, but Irene Adler was a master of body language. She flexed her own hand, aching to touch him. He noticed.

This was probably one of the most controlled, powerful men Irene Adler had met in her entire life.

She wanted to _break_ him.

“Why,” she said quietly, reaching out to run the tip of one nail over his jaw, admiring the stark whiteness of her own hand against him, “don’t I show you the way?”

He moved his head back a fraction, just enough to get her nail off of his skin, eyes intense on her face, “How much have you ever lost on a coin toss?”  He said it like a script, and Irene was not impressed.

The question threw her for a moment, before she shook her head, chuckling, “I don’t gamble, darling.  I make my own way in the world.” She moved her hand to her hip, leaning back to study him.

Beneath the shotgun, in the shadow of his jacket, he was getting hard.  She could see it, practically smell his reluctant arousal, and she started to salivate for him.  It wasn’t her body, couldn’t have been, maybe it was her confidence. Maybe he _wanted_ her to have power over him.  He wouldn’t be the first, and certainly not the last, to quiver beneath her touch.

He reached down, and she felt her eyes dilate when his fingers brushed over his hip, shifting up to dig into the front pocket of his dark denim pants, and he pulled out an American quarter.  He threw it up, and it flipped in the air before he caught it neatly, almost crushing his fingers around the coin. His voice only slightly strained, “Heads or tails? Call it.”

She smiled, bright red against white teeth, and softly, so soft he almost couldn’t hear her, “No.”

“You have to call it.”  He sounded dark now, his voice deep, the accent dipping even more over the hills and valleys of the words.  She wanted to hear him speak Spanish. She wanted to make it so it was the only thing he _could_ speak, so out of his mind with pleasure he reverted to his mother tongue.  She wanted to hear him scream her name, rolling the ‘r’ like a staccato beat.

She wanted to roll her hips over him while he did it.

“This isn’t up to chance,” she shot back, slowly widening her stance to straddle the thigh without the barrel of the shotgun on it.  She didn't touch him, she wouldn’t touch him, but she _hovered._  His grip on his weapon tightened, and he very slowly brought it up, to touch it against the soft underside of her jaw.  She didn’t waver, just rested the point of her chin on the silencer and smiled at him. “I’ve made a decision,” she said, gently, “I made it as soon as I saw you in my doorway.  If you want me to stop, I will, but you shouldn’t leave something like this up to a piece of metal.” She leaned down, dragging her cheekbone against the cold body of the gun, and kissed the knuckles of the hand holding the quarter, keeping eye contact, and she felt the power in his grip intensify.  She smiled at him, and his eyes got dark. She let her mouth open just enough for her to rest the sharp points of her incisors on his fingers, biting lightly at the bone, and she felt his thigh muscles clench in between hers.

“If you want me,” she coaxed, “then take me.  It’s really that simple.”

She felt his thumb gently touch her jaw, she leaned up towards his face, and then something in the air changed.

Irene flung herself backward violently, and he pulled the trigger on reflex, barely missing her head as he pumped scattershot into the trefoil pattern of her ceiling.  At the same time, the blonde had shot a neat hole through his shoulder from where she’d come through a servant entrance, a part of the bookcase hanging open.

“Idiot,” the blonde hissed, and ducked as he pulled the shotgun over his shoulder and fired it.

Irene scrambled up, covered in plaster, and ran through the doorway.  It was obliterated in the blast behind her, the sound of the silencer almost frighteningly soft.  She realized, suddenly, that it was so quiet nobody outside would hear it. The blonde met her on the stairs, and together they ran up.

Anton Chigurh didn’t make any pained noise, didn’t acknowledge his wound, just stalked them slowly.  He aimed again as they reached the top story landing, the blonde’s shots missing by centimeters, and he didn’t even _flinch_.  God, Irene had never been so aroused for _free_ before.  She made the mistake of looking down at him, her naked skin glowing in the sunlight from the high windows, and she didn’t see anything on his face as he leveled the barrel at her.

She was fortunate that the blonde had the presence of mind to yank her down the hall, the shot would have hit true and destroyed any chance of a pretty corpse for Kate if she’d stood there a moment longer.  As it was, two pieces of the buckshot lodged themselves in her calf, and she hissed.

But Irene delt in pain for a living.  She pressed forward.

“How do we get out of here?”  The blonde hissed, her grip on Irene’s upper arm bruising.  “And where are your clothes?”

In response, Irene plucked a coat from a hook on the back of a door and elegantly swirled it on.  “We have to either go down enough to jump to the street, or get the roof and jump to the next building.”

“Seriously?  That’s-” There was another shot, he’d found them through the maze of hallways, and Mary shoved her into a room and locked the door.  “Okay, well, my employer isn’t going to like your lack of planning, that’s for sure. You need a reliable exit on every floor, and he’d insist on a second that only you knew about.”  The blonde pried open the disused servant entrance and shoved Irene inside, closing it firmly behind her. They heard the soft noise of the shotgun behind them, and the blonde hurried her down the stairs.

They popped out into a drawing room on the floor below, and Irene whispered at her, “What’s your name?”

“Call me Mary,” she said shortly, prying open another panel in the wall.  There was no noise, and then a part of the ceiling far too close to both of them for comfort exploded downward.  “And stop fucking talking!”

Mary grabbed Irene again and said, as they tried to silently make their way down through the hidden stairs in the walls, “Where’s the briefcase?  My employer will make this man look like a stuffed animal if we go back without it.” She’d long given up at trying to incapacitate the other assassin, too focused on fleeing with her soft little charge.  Moriarty would be _extremely_ upset if Irene Adler died, she was apparently instrumental in his plot with his weird detective crush.  If she did get her head and half her torso blown in, Mary was determined to flee to somewhere nice and isolated.  Antarctica, perhaps. Global warming and all, it couldn’t be too bad this time of year.

“I don’t know,” for the first time, Irene sounded afraid.

Mary stopped on the cramped, narrow, stairs.  “What,” she intoned, dangerously soft.

“I had my assistant hide it.  Only she knows all of the little hidey holes here.”  Irene kept going, and Mary rubbed her forehead. “I sent her off because I thought this might get dangerous,” she was rambling now, “and I didn’t want her to get hurt.”

There was noise through the wall.

A soft click, but nothing exploded.

He had to reload.  That gave Mary about ten seconds to get Irene Adler out of here.

“He’s after the briefcase, but he’s also probably going to kill you for the little stunt you pulled.  The man is a machine,” they were running freely now, regardless of noise, “You can’t _seduce_ him.”

“It was working fine before you showed up!”  Irene shot back, “And I’ll have you know that machine or not, he has all the _parts_ of a man.”  She slammed herself into a hallway, and she estimated they were probably on the second floor.  Some of these windows had awnings on the first floor, if they could hit one and roll off, they probably would make it onto the street in good enough shape to run.

Anton Chigurh, however, turned the corner and she was met with a face full of silencer.  Mary shot, and he moved his head a fraction of an inch, barely getting a graze on his cheekbone, his hair fluttering in the wake, and before he could pull the trigger, Irene had reached into her curls and pulled out the one of the senbon covered in paralytic, driving it deep into the shoulder joint closest to her.  He let out a grunt of pain, forced to drop his shotgun, and Irene didn’t give Mary a second thought as she ran down the hallway until she saw a familiar flutter of green, just at the edge of the sill, and she flung the window open, sitting backward on the ledge.

He looked up at her, his dark eyes filled with grudging respect as he pulled the needle out of his shoulder.  The paralytic, however, had already gone to work and he couldn’t lift that arm. It would wear off in about fifteen minutes, but she intended to be far away by then.  “See you around, handsome,” she whispered, throwing him a wink, and dropped herself out of the window.

He didn’t respond, didn’t say anything at all, but she felt his eyes on the back of her neck as she darted down the nearest alley.  He fired one shot that was far too wide to have been aimed for her truly, scattering brick debris down around her as she disappeared from view.  She heard the soft boots and now familiar gait of Mary catch up with her at the second turn into another filthy alleyway. How she’d gotten out, Irene didn’t, _couldn’t_ , care.

“He’s going to _hunt_ us,” she practically yelled, “until he gets that briefcase back, if he doesn’t find it while _ripping_ up your home.  Even then, he might do it for _sport._ ”  They turned sharply, and Mary pulled out a phone, angrily hitting a button on it, “Now I have to get that asshole Sebastian involved, assuming he doesn’t rat us out to my employer, and let me tell you, Miss Adler, you really got Anton Chigurh’s attention.  If he doesn’t kill you for the briefcase, he might just do it on principle. I can’t believe you-”

“He liked it,” Irene said, her voice strained and out of breath. Her leg was really starting to hurt, the blood running freely, “I don’t think he was offended.”

“You have no idea,” Mary spat, “what he likes, _The Woman_.  He’s not a normal man.  He tried to get you to toss a coin.  That means he was at _least_ half hoping to shoot you.  I’ve never heard of him displaying any sort of interest in anyone, and word about him gets around.  He’d probably fuck you and then shoot you right as you climaxed, just because he _can._ ”  To herself, she grumbled, “Trust my employer to lure someone like _that_ to come into this country, I’ve never heard of him in anywhere but Central America and the Southern United States.”

Whatever she’d sent to whoever Sebastian was, apparently it had been well received.  They came out of another filthy alley, Irene refusing to think about the state of her pedicure, when two huge black SUVs pulled in front of them.  The door to one swung open, and a man with a huge scar bisecting his face quirked an eyebrow. “Need a ride, ladies?”

Mary practically picked Irene up by her collar and threw her in, leaping after her.  They sped away, and Irene felt a cold chill down her spine.

“Hello girls,” came a singsonging voice from the passenger seat, that timbre inherently familiar despite the short measure of their communication.  “I’m sorry to say that Daddy’s a little disappointed.”

Mary ripped her hat off, stuffing it into her tactical vest pocket, and almost _screeched,_ “I told you, Moriarty, I told you about Anton Chigurh.  Getting this one involved, even as a test, against a creature like that, is insane.  She’s a sex worker, Moriarty, not a soldier. You’re damn lucky I was able to bring her back alive.”  She grabbed Irene’s slim ankle with one gloved hand, ripping the offending garment off of the other with her teeth, exposing a pale hand with scars and tidy nails, and produced a tiny first aid kit from one of her many pockets.  She ignored Irene’s hiss of pain as she angrily swabbed at the wound with an alcohol wipe.

“I didn’t see the goods, _honey._ ”  Jim’s tone was pure poison, and he stared out through the tinted windshield sullenly, his arms crossed and his aviator shades fully in place.  “Don’t make me send both of you back to get it.”

“This idiot lost it in her own house,” Mary said shortly, and Sebastian gave a sharp bark of laughter.

“I did _not_ , Kate knows-”  Irene was irate, her painted eyes wide in indignation, but she shut her pretty painted mouth as soon as Jim held up one hand.

The three of them froze, and the driver pulled over to the side of the road automatically.  The second car pulled up behind them.

Jim flicked his wrist and pulled his sunglasses off with a flourish, deliberately, slowly, laying the right arm down first, and then gently laying the left on top of it.  He pulled a branded leather case from the glove compartment, lightly nestling the sunglasses inside of the satin interior, smoothing one fingertip over the top of the frame.  He shut the case with a snap that seemed too loud for the little space.

He turned, slowly, in his seat, and his face was a very frightening sort of blankness that instantly reminded Irene of Anton Chigurh’s face as she'd straddled his thigh.

He let his eyes fall on each of them in turn, even Sebastian, before he let his gaze return to Irene.  She fluttered her eyelashes and pursed her lips in nervousness. Her tongue darted out to touch her lower lip, something that had fascinated Jim during his first visit, but now he didn’t even look.  His voice was calm, “Where is the briefcase, Irene Adler?” He tilted his head and worked his jaw, just a little, in a way that told Irene he was about ten seconds from shooting her straight in the head.

She wildly thought that if she was going to be shot today, she might have been able to make Chigurh beg first.

“It’s in my house,” she said, hating the tremor in her voice, and Mary’s hand tightened on her ankle.  She realized, belatedly, that her leg had started trembling as well.

He gave one solid shake of his head, “No.  That’s not what I meant and you know it. _Where_ , in your house, is that briefcase?”  The leather of his seat creaked as he leaned in, bracing one elbow on the center console, resting his sharp chin on his palm, the weight of his attention threatening to crush her.  He was so _intense._ “You have no idea,” he breathed, “what I had to go through to appropriate that.”

“I don’t know where it is,” she whispered, and she was suddenly deeply ashamed to feel heavy beads of tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.  Jim’s face went from blank to a _demonic_ fury in seconds, but before he could yell, or shoot her, or leap into the back seat and choke her, the back window was suddenly full of scattershot.

He’d found them.

Jim cursed, loudly, and flung himself back into the forward facing position, shouting for the driver to just _go_.  There was a second shot, and that shotgun _had_ to be modified.  Irene thought, blankly, that bulletproof glass was chemically composed of two different types of glass, one soft and one hard. The softer glass made the pane bend instead of break, and the back window had taken a faceful of shot that made it practically snap in half.  The body of the car, she realized numbly, looking behind her at the pinpricks of light streaming in, was not bulletproof in the slightest.

Anton Chigurh had filled the car behind them with high powered bullets and ripped the bodies out, some of them still grasping their guns, onto the London side street.  So many people were screaming, and the only part of him with blood on him was his hands. As she watched, he pulled a rag from his pants, wiping his hands off, before folding it back up neatly into a square and sliding it back into his pocket. Irene, staring through the greenish glass, broken into so many little pieces that just wanted to let go, found herself strangely calm.  His face was completely blank, his brow not furrowed at all. He didn’t even look annoyed. She could barely make out his face as they sped away, but he almost looked like he was close to smiling.

He looked right at her and tilted his head.

Then he hit the gas and peeled out, following them.  He hit a man who was trying to flag him down, and Irene felt pale as the hapless bystander got sucked under the wheels, Anton not even looking as the SUV bumped over him and kept going.

“I should shove you out of this fucking car,” and it took Irene more than a minute to realize Jim was shouting at her, his hands gripping the dash.

“Moriarty,” Mary said, surprisingly patient, “this man would have followed us either way.  He’s barely human. Whoever you stole that from hired him to get it back, and he’s not going to stop until he gets it.  There was one time, in Texas…” she paused, her tongue suddenly thick in her mouth, and she muttered, “The stories were bad.  From what I heard, not exaggerated. He killed a lot more people than he needed to.” She closed her eyes and belatedly opened them to find that Irene was bleeding all over her lap.  She’d never dressed the wound. Her hands steady despite the jerky movements of the car, she gently pulled a roll of bandage and a gauze pad out of her kit, applying pressure over the little wounds while she quickly secured it.  She tied it off in a neat knot, tucking the loose ends down. “You'll need to get the debris out,” she murmured, and Irene nodded jerkily.

“Kate has a nursing degree,” she replied quietly, “She'll be able to do that.”  Mary looked at her speculatively but didn't comment.

Sebastian had been at work himself, zipping open a large black duffle bag at his feet, and he’d started precisely putting together a high powered long range rifle, the kind Irene realized was used in sniping jobs and hunting elephants in Africa.  One of those hollowpoints could blow out the skull of a great beast, and she swallowed when she thought of what it was going to do to Anton Chigurh’s head.

“What are you doing, Sebby,” Jim’s voice had gone high pitched and brittle, angry, “Nothing can penetrate that glass.  Same as this one. He _stole_ it.”

“I know, Boss.”  The other man, hair also a dirty shade of blonde, was loading it carefully.  The driver took another sharp turn, but Anton followed them extremely precisely.  “I’m not going to aim for him.”

Mary clapped Irene’s hands over her ears, then covered her own, throwing herself on top of the other woman.  Sebastian flipped around and lowered himself, peering through the scope of the rifle carefully. “Hold it steady, Byron,” he shouted, and the driver gave an answering grunt as he drove onto another street, this one a long, straight stretch.

Anton wasn’t even holding the wheel, his hands on his shotgun, and he and Sebastian stared at each other for a second.  “Try it, asshole,” Sebastian smiled and lowered the barrel of his rifle just enough to send a bullet right through the engine bay, blowing out the rest of the glass from the rear window, and a great gout of steam poured out, but the car didn’t stop.  Anton, however, had to drop the shotgun and grab the wheel with both hands to control it.

Without missing a beat, Sebastian took another shot.  Careful, precise, and this time the entire engine shut down with a groan and a metallic squeal.  It had only inertia keeping it going forward, and Anton Chigurh looked, for the first time, positively murderous.

Irene shuddered.  It was a terrifying expression.  Still, something inside of her throbbed.  With a professional practice, she pushed her attraction down and away.  Mary sat up, helping to right her. Her ankle stayed in Mary’s lap, mostly because she was still clutching the delicate joint with her ungloved hand.

“Byron,” Sebastian started, as Anton grabbed his shotgun again, “Turn.  Now.  Right now.”

Without another prompt, the car took the next sharp right, swerving around cars and busses, with Jim tapping furiously on his phone.  “Left,” he snarled. There was a loud bang, metal on metal, as Anton’s car slammed into a sedan parked on the curb.

Byron went left.

“Right.”

Byron went right.

Irene’s stomach started to fall.  The streets were starting to look very familiar, like they'd made a large circle.

“Another left.”

One more left.

“Stop.”

Byron stopped the car in the middle of the road, everyone behind him honking.

They sat in front of her home.

Jim slammed his phone down on the dashboard and didn’t look at her.  She jumped, but she was the only one. Mary and Sebastian both look straight ahead, posture up and faces blank.  Jim rubbed his forehead and sighed, “Okay. Daddy’s sorry.” He bit the words out as though he’d rather choke on them.  “That was _interesting_ , and this wasn’t supposed to be interesting.  I wonder,” and his attention drifted back to his phone, “what his rates are.”

“Why,” she said softly, and his head turned back toward her sharply, licking her lips and almost managing to not stutter, “are we here?”

For the first time since they’d seen Anton, Jim turned and smiled at her.  It was terrifying, that smile, and it reached his eyes with a cold, cruel light.  “I want my briefcase,” he said evenly.

“But-”  Irene bit out, and his smile deepened.  She stopped talking immediately. She sat very still, suddenly feeling like prey, like a doe with her leg all spread across the seat and Mary’s hand on her ankle.

Without warning, his hand flashed out and wrenched her leg out of Mary’s grip.  The blonde let it go without a hint of resistance, and Irene fought down the vague sense of betrayal that slid through her mind as her body swung around along with the offending limb.  His fingers were crushing on her foot, his thumb digging painfully into the arch and making the tendon running up the back of her calf ache and seize. His fingernails, clipped short and even, were still sharp enough to leave deep red crescents.

“Go get it,” he said softly, closing his eyes and digging his fingers into her. She felt a sharp bite of pain, one of the nails had broken through her skin.  She knew better than to flinch. “Call your little live-in one, tear the entire place apart, I don’t care. But I am going to sit right here until you come back out with shoes on your feet and my briefcase in your hands.”  He opened his eyes and his reddish-brown gaze landed on her. She swallowed. “Do you understand?”

She stared at him, her big blue eyes still wet at the corners with unshed tears.

His smile dropped off his face, and his grip tightened to the point she wasn’t sure if the sound of her bones creaking was supplied by her imagination, “If you come out of that house without my property,” and his voice was so soft, so gentle, like he was explaining something simple to a child, “I will cut this foot off and make you _eat it._ ”

She ripped her foot out of his grip, ignoring the bloody marks left behind, and flung open the door of the car.  Irene stumbled and practically tripped over herself, trying to run from him.

She automatically regained her posture and she walked around the car, entirely too aware of Jim’s eyes on her, a wolf in Westwood.  He had a white square of cotton, almost the same as she’d seen Anton Chigurh clean his own hands off with, wiping down every part of his hand that had touched her foot.  His face was flat and serious, and his gaze _pierced_ her.  Irene’s fine feet, ignoring their covering of alleyway filth, carried her effortlessly up her white steps.  Her front door was already unlocked.

Turning around for one minute, her still immaculately painted mouth hidden behind the upturned collar of her jacket, and she met Jim’s eyes as she slowly stepped over the threshold.  She kept eye contact as she shut the wide white panel of the door, collapsing against it as soon as the latch clicked quietly into place.

Irene fought to control her breathing, great gasping sobs tearing their way out of her throat, and without her permission, her knees folded beneath her and she collapsed onto her shining marble floor.  The hard rock was cold beneath her, the coat barely down to her mid-thigh, and she closed her eyes, allowing herself a moment of weakness. How terribly traumatic. Quietly, as if she was still afraid, she whispered, “Damn you, Jim Moriarty.”

She gave herself thirty more seconds, half a minute to curl up on herself and be thankful for the life she’d come so close to losing.  Her job required pain, required posturing, required control, but it always came with a safeword. Always came with people who were willing to stop.  She would whip someone until they bled, but only because they wanted her to.

She’d serviced Jim, that had been how she’d met him, and he was the first person she honestly thought was going to use her for murder.  She’d had to use her safeword before he had, and he’d given her such a grin, such a delighted hiss, and she’d never forget the look on his face when he laughed, “I _won_.  Do you want a little _side work_ , Woman?  I think I’ll be seeing quite a bit more of you.”

The memory of his laugh rang in her head, and she put one foot in front of her, strong thigh flexing as her toes spread and found purchase on her polished floor.  Head tilted, she stared at her toes. Her nail polish was chipped. Damn shame, that Louboutin red had been limited. She was going to run out soon. Raising herself up, she trembled for only a moment before bounding up the stairs as silently as possible.  She needed her phone. It had been locked in the safe, behind the mirror, before even Mary had shown up.

Also, pants.  Pants, underwear, and a fine sweater would be heavenly.  Irene was even sure she had soft flats around somewhere, a Gucci pair, black, with onyx studs in little starbursts.  It would have to do. Wearing heels at this point of a day like this would just be foolish.

She refused to think about the fact that she had no idea where Anton Chigurh had ended up.

The tight, controlled fury in his brow as he’d leveled the shotgun right at her in this very stairwell.

The way he’d looked up at her from the chair, the moment his aura had shifted, all his little micro-expressions he couldn’t control, the moment she knew he’d wanted her.  The telltale bulge in his trousers. The minute dilation of his pupils.

As she padded into the sitting room, delicately stepping over slivers of her walnut paneling and parts of the trefoil from her ceiling, his tea still untouched and cold, her cup knocked gracelessly to the side, she quietly opened the mirror.  In went the code, her measurements, and she gladly retrieved her phone.

The house was silent around her.

She didn’t bother bringing it out of low power mode, tapping her emergency contact button.  Irene slipped into her dressing room, grabbing her package of makeup wipes and sequestered herself into her enormous closet.

Kate picked up on the fourth ring, and Irene waited for her greeting, “Hi lover.”

Irene froze.

“Have you been taken?” she whispered.  They had a rotation of ways to answer the phone, and that one always meant extreme danger.

“Oh, not yet,” said Kate, breezily.  There was the sound of traffic behind her.  “But you know him, he just _dogs_ me!”  She was being followed.

Irene felt her stomach turn into ice, and she pushed out, “Kate, where did you hide that briefcase?”

A throaty laugh, only slightly tinted by fear, “You know the safest place is always at my side!  Really, darling, it’s for the best.”

Shit.

_Shit._

“Go to Muhammad’s.  Or Enache’s. The Arabs and the Romanians both owe me a favor.  I… Kate, it’s dangerous to be around me now, more than usual. You have no idea what you’re carrying.  Get somewhere, anywhere safe and contact Moriarty.” There was a pause, then Irene purred, “And Kate, my darling, I’m going to _punish_ you the next time we meet.  You were supposed to leave the case here.  I won’t forget that.”

“Oh my love, I can’t wait to see you again.  I hope you’ll forgive me, but I have to run. Salam!”  Her voice was breathy with fear and no small touch of arousal. The line went dead.  Kate had been a track star in her youth, incredibly fast. She was like a greyhound, she couldn’t help but long to run.  And she always, always, wore practical footwear when she went out on an errand, clever, beautiful woman. If she was going to Muhammad’s, he’d protect her.  He was a low-ranking Saudi prince, and his bunker could rival anything Moriarty had ever come up with, but quietly. His front was a tea room and delicious Middle Eastern bakery.  Irene had become acquainted with him, and his baklava, through his cousin, who liked her when she wore leather. She always, always, knew what they liked.

Muhammad liked her like a daughter and loved to stuff her full of sweets.  He was sweet, kindly, and loved his wife too much to find another woman beautiful.

He’d protect Kate if she could sprint to his shop on time.

Irene belatedly turned off her phone screen, wiggling into her designer jeans that were loose enough to not irritate the wound on her calf and a fluffy woolen sweater.  She found the eight hundred pound flats stuffed in a shelf, behind a bin full of corsets, and scrubbed her feet clean with makeup wipes before patting them dry on the fairly clean hem of her coat and slipping them on.

She grabbed a little clutch, already full of credit cards and enough cash to set her up comfortably, and threw her phone inside, slipping off the labradorite studs and grabbing a plain set of pearls to put in their place.  Her brand was polished, she was automatically more protective of her image than her life. She inspected her manicure, it was perfect. She could hide her toes in the loafers, but her fingers would always give her away. She spent a minute fixing her hair, debating going up to the second landing to get her fourth senbon, but she decided against it.  She had to escape out the back and slip away, hail a cab and get to the airport before Moriarty or Chigurh showed up to put a bullet in her brain.

Oh, Kate.

She couldn’t have known the level of danger she’d thrust herself and Irene into by taking that case out of the safety of their home.

Running one lovely, slim hand down her face, careful not to muss her makeup, Irene took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and envisioned her route.  Up to the landing, out the window farthest from the front, then catch a cab on the opposite street from Moriarty. Go to Muhammad’s. Get the case, get Kate before Moriarty, kiss Kate, then get on a plane and go to Russia for a month or two.  She knew what almost every high ranking official liked, and all of them were very discreet when given the right… incentive.

Get cleaners to come to sweep this place and sell it.  She’d miss it, dearly, but there were other properties in London, and all of her things would be put in storage until she could retrieve them.

Seconds later, Irene cautiously, slowly, quietly, unlatched the closet door and opened it.  In front of her, standing just off to the side to not cast a shadow under the door, was the shiny silver silencer of Anton Chigurh’s shotgun.  Attached to it was a deceptively calm-looking Anton Chigurh.

“Don’t,” and oh, his deep, gentle voice sent a shiver straight to the apex of her thighs and she _hated_ it, “move.  You know what’ll happen if you do.”  He raised one eyebrow and nudged the barrel of the shotgun up just enough for the opening to be pointed straight at her nose.  His hair was mussed, just a few strands out of place, and she let her eyes go heavy-lidded.

“Miss me already, Mr. Chigurh?”  Her voice was breathy and just a touch, just a _little_ , excited.

He narrowed his eyes at her.

She raised one perfectly shaped brow back at him.

At length, he murmured, “You’re clothed this time.  Going somewhere?”

“Disappointed?” she purred, neatly sidestepping his question.

“No,” was his short answer.

“Why,” she whispered, “haven’t you shot me yet?”  She fluttered her eyelashes at him.

He didn’t say anything at all, but he got a furrow between his eyebrows and his shoulders got a slow tremor that rolled through, like a cat waking up after a long nap in the sunshine.  She let her shoulders drop and her chin raise up, the wide collar of the sweater slipping to expose a creamy expanse of skin. His eyes strayed to her pulse point.

He didn’t lower the gun.

She reached for her hair, debating on grabbing her last paralytic, and he let the safety off.  “No,” was all he said, faintly, and she pouted.

“Jim Moriarty is out front, and the case is no longer _here_.” She bit out, keeping her hands where he could see them.  “There’s really nothing you can do with me. Well,” she added thoughtfully, her eyes going dark, “I can think of a thing or two…”

“Stop that,” he said, huffing out a sigh, shaking his head slowly, “It’s not dignified.”

Irene pulled back, instantly offended, “I’m sorry?”

He gestured with the barrel of the gun, “The nudity, the innuendo, the flirting, none of it will save your life.  Just because-”

She cut him off, her voice frigid and her eyes angry pinpricks in the dull light, “Just because I’m a woman, you mean?  I have to use sex to get my way, the only reason I might flirt is manipulation?  Darling, maybe you're just my _type._ ”  He was right, in a roundabout way, but she’d never tell him that.  Irene put one finger on the barrel and slowly, slowly, pushed it down. Her mask was so strong, so perfect, it wasn’t really a mask at all. Really, The Woman was who Irene really was when she dropped all pretense of vulnerability.

She held her breath for a moment, then two, as he automatically resisted her direction.  Then, he let her gentle force guide the barrel of the gun to point at the floor. She smiled and brought her bare shoulder up, tilting her head to touch her cheekbone against it.  It left her head at an almost inhumane tilt, meant to be unsettling, and she wasn’t surprised when his expression didn’t change.

She took a step closer, and he tilted his head down to keep eye contact with her.

“You said,” he started softly, and she had to lean in to hear him, “that the briefcase was no longer here.  Where is it?”

She gave him a coy smile and didn’t say anything else.

Anton sighed, rolled his eyes up, and murmured, “Very well.”

Without a second thought, his right hand released the trigger and he struck, while his left hand held the barrel of the shotgun.  The edge of his fingers, held tense, hit her with powerful, precise amount of pressure on her neck, on the artery just below her ear in a textbook example of a brachial stun, and the impact knocked her instantly unconscious body into the wall.  He caught her as she crumpled, not wanting her dead quite yet and unwilling to risk additional trauma.

Her clutch fell from her suddenly slack fingers, and he reached down to grab it with one hand.  He grabbed the cards and cash, staring at the phone for a heartbeat before grabbing that as well.  The cash went into his front breast pocket, the cards into the back pocket of his jeans, and the phone went into the hip pocket of his jacket.  He threw the empty clutch back into the closet.

Chigurh hefted her slack body over his shoulder and considered.  If Jim Moriarty, who had stolen the case from his current employer, was waiting out front, then he would have the bodyguard who had shot the engine out of that car with him.  That man had skill, which he respected, and he probably had more bullets with him, which made him cautious. They had to go out a back entrance, but not the one he’d entered from.  That was clearly what Miss Adler had been planning to do before he’d caught her. He’d heard of Jim Moriarty, and the punishments he doled out for the people who disappointed him. If she came out without that briefcase, the odds of him leaving her unscathed were slim to nothing.

The thought didn't bother him, there were consequences for every action, but it was curious that he hadn’t killed her yet.  He’d taken a live hostage twice before, and neither one had turned out to be particularly useful experience. He’d wound up shooting them both out of sheer irritation.  Those jobs had finished without a hitch, so he hadn’t seen the value in a live hostage since. Miss Adler, however, was uncommonly intelligent and kept her cards close to her chest.  She knew where the briefcase was, and intuition told him that trying to track it from her would be more difficult than usual. It was not outside the realm of possibility that she would vanish into the wind, with the property, and neither himself nor Jim Moriarty would be able to find her again.  He hadn’t expected the property to have made its way into the custody of someone like this. What an interesting development.

He moved silently through the house, eyes on the windows, ears open, gun in one hand and the other holding Miss Adler, The Woman, securely by the waist.

There had been something in her gaze, before he’d hit her, that had reminded him of every time he looked in a mirror.  Something flat, something dark, some part of her that _recognized_ a part of him.

He paused on the landing where she’d stabbed him, the long needle still where he’d discarded it.  His blood had congealed, thick and red, on the sharp tip and halfway up the shaft. The paralytic had only lasted about five minutes, his metabolism being what it was, but it had been very surprising.  So rarely was he surprised.

He’d have to take the rest of those needles out of her hair.  Carefully.

She’d jumped out of a window last time.  He doubted he’d be able to do so while holding her unconscious body.  Well, he considered, not if he wanted both of them to remain uninjured.  If push came to shove, she would survive a broken arm and leg, if he could protect her head, neck, and spine.

He went back down to the bottom floor.

The layout of this place was terribly English, very Victorian, and he hated it.  So many useless little rooms.  Quite a few were sparsely decorated, which he appreciated, but there was just no  _point_ to having so many doors in one place.

He padded to the back of the first floor, finding a tall window that was nailed shut and breaking it, gently, by setting down his shotgun, winding the bottom of the curtain around his wrist, and giving it two powerful punches until it shattered.  He had to be very, very quick. It was not out of the realm of possibility that one of Jim Moriarty’s crew had heard the tinkling of the glass. He found it oddly curious she didn’t have an alarm on this window.

He hopped out first, carefully maneuvering Irene so that none of her skin or clothes caught on the long, jagged shards that hadn’t fallen from the wooden frame.  He reached down after, grabbing his shotgun by the silencer and quietly pulling it up.

There was a tan sedan in the alley, it’s hazard lights flashing and the keys left in the engine.  Someone was moving in the house next door, and he wasted no time. He opened the passenger side door and slumped Irene into it gracelessly, her head lolling and her legs landing uncomfortably.  From his waistband, he pulled a handgun, also with a silencer, and aimed it at the figure in the window. Short, dark hair, dark clothes, and that was when he stopped caring. Their back was to the alley, and they’d stopped moving to rifle through a drawer.  He aimed and fired, once, and it was so soft, so quiet, but the shattering glass was not, and the spray of blood and brains on the opposite wall was like a beacon.

If Jim Moriarty’s crew was listening, he had less than a minute to get away.  He didn’t even wait a heartbeat to slide over the roof of the car and throw himself into the driver’s seat, taking ten seconds to slide the seat belt over Irene, suddenly glad there was no blood on her very white sweater, and arrange her to look like she was simply sleeping.  A bruise was forming on her neck, and he arranged her to have that side hidden in the shadow of her chin. He threw on his own seat belt, better to avoid suspicion, better to blend in. He turned off the hazard lights and threw the car into drive.

The whole operation took about forty-five seconds.

He was gone before Sebastian had even made it past the front door.


	2. Velocity

Anton Chigurh was driving through the sparse traffic, careful to avoid where the shootout and car chase had been earlier, and before too long, he was in a middle-class London suburb, and he pulled up to a squat hotel that boasted free wi-fi and a 24-hour bar.  The building was low, maybe three stories, and had a brick facade painted a pale yellow.

Irene Adler had shifted during the drive, the way a body does when it no longer has a conscious mind to tell it how to balance.  She was still breathing, and he estimated it would be maybe thirty minutes before the place he’d struck her started to deepen from pink to violet.  She was facing him, and he didn’t look at her again while he found somewhere to stop.

He parked the car on the street, looking around carefully, and then gently, but hard enough to wake her, tapped Irene’s cheek.  She’d been out for about fifteen minutes, and that was when people generally bounced back from that sort of strike, he’d learned from experience.  He kept his hand on her face as her eyes fluttered open, and he forced a semblance of a smile as her eyes widened and she went absolutely still.

To her credit, she didn’t scream and she didn’t struggle.

The first thing Irene saw when she woke up, feeling a large, male hand heavy on her cheek, was Anton Chigurh trying to smile at her.  She froze and took stock of her situation. She was in an unfamiliar car, in an unfamiliar neighborhood that was probably still in or near London, they were in front of an unfamiliar hotel, and his shotgun was tucked between his thigh and the driver’s side door.

She was trapped.  Absolutely.

“If you try anything,” he said pleasantly, “I will kill you.  You will make my job easier, but you are not indispensable.”

She didn’t respond, didn’t move, barely breathed, and he nodded in satisfaction.

“We are going to be a couple.  You will act like you normally do, and pretend to be anything other than frightened.  I have the contents of your wallet on my person. You will use the false ID to get us a room with a single bed.”  She did raise an eyebrow at that, and he kept his false smile on his face. “I also have your phone.” She tensed, and he noticed.  His smile slipped into something darker, more feral.

She whispered, “Has anyone called?”

He shook his head once, “No.”

She licked her lips, her lipstick still not smudged, and responded absently, “That might not be good.”  She looked like she was about to add something else, then visibly bit her tongue and closed her lips.

“Once we are in the room,” he continued, “You will use the phone to locate the briefcase.  I do not care how you do it. If you cannot locate it, I will no longer consider you useful.  Do you understand what that means?” He hadn’t blinked the entire time, and neither had Irene.

“Yes,” she said, softly, then again, “Yes,” in a much firmer tone.

“One more thing, before we go.  How many needles do you have in your hair?  If you lie, I will know.” His fingertips pressed into her cheek.

“Three.”  She said it through gritted teeth.

He gave her another blank smile and opened his free hand in an unspoken command.

Irene waited a heartbeat too long, and he raised one eyebrow.

Her quick hands flexed and went to her crushed curls and waves, quickly locating and extracting all three, placing them neatly in a silver line on his palm.  He slowly closed his fingers over them, depositing them carefully in his front jacket breast pocket, and gave her a considering look.

“Tell me about Jim Moriarty,” he said, at length.

“He wants to hire you,” she shot back immediately, “That should tell you everything you need to know.”

He tilted his head, “It tells me something, but not what I need. Does he have a tracker on his team?  Someone that could find you?”

She sucked her teeth for a moment, quiet, then finally replied, “I’m not sure.  I haven’t known him long, I hadn’t met any of those in his employ before today. You probably know as much as I do.  I don’t ask many personal questions, in my profession. I do know what he likes, though.” She eyed him for a moment, “He would like you, I’m certain.”

He hummed low in his throat, looking at the road.  His fingertips tapped at her cheek, and someone walking by gave them an odd look.  Irene gently lifted his hand from her face, explaining, “People don’t act like this with someone they care about.  You don’t have to play this sort of game often, do you?”

Anton considered her again, and flatly commented, “I’ve never kept one of them alive before.  It’s new.”

She raised one eyebrow, “You just shoot everyone you come across, then?”

He didn’t respond, just looked at her as his face settled into blankness.

Irene’s bright, clever eyes flicked between the shotgun and his hands, which were positioned very deliberately for quick action.  She pasted a bright smile on her face, leaned in, and whispered, “We’re going to have to practice before we go in, darling.” She could play this game.  Irene was a very good actor, and she was curiously still not frightened. Jim had frightened her more than this man, which was probably not a good thing.  Anton Chigurh, she suspected, was a psychopath. Incapable of empathy, and he would stick out like a sore thumb if he was prodding her into getting anyone to believe that they were lovers.

Without any warning, she leaned up and kissed him full on the mouth.

It was very chaste, as far as kisses went, but he reacted poorly.  The first thing he did was snap back violently, his bang falling out across his forehead, and almost at the same time, he reached out and dug his thumb into her trachea.  Hard enough to hurt, but not enough to fracture it. A warning. His fingers were pressing into the back of her neck, pulling on her stray hairs, and her immediate response was, “People are going to watch.  Lower your hand.”

He did so, and she didn’t fail to notice that his other hand had circled the shotgun.  He relaxed both of his hands and asked her, perfectly even, “What are you doing?”

“Physical intimacy,” she said tartly, “is something lovers demonstrate.  There are expected behaviors between people who are attracted to each other, and trying to snap someone’s neck when they kiss you is not one of them.”  She leaned in again, and he moved back suspiciously.

She sat back in the seat, frowning.  “Baby steps, then. If you haven’t done this often, or at all, let’s get your body language right.  I’m going to reach out and fix your hair. You are going to lean into my touch, but only a little bit.  You’re going to act like you like it. And if you can’t smile, which I suspect you cannot in a way that doesn’t look very forced, you’re going to have to at least look blank.  Relax the corners of your eyes, and smooth out your brow.” She held both hands up, and he didn’t move when she ran her fingers through his hair. She combed it efficiently, neatly, and kept her eyes on his face to gauge his expression.  She ran her nails over his scalp a few times and immediately his eyes relaxed. She hid her smile behind a look on concentration, and spent an extra minute sweeping his bang over to the side, running the tips of her fingers through his forelocks, before she swept her nails down his jaw, to his chin, and leaned in to kiss him again.

He didn’t pull back, but he did tense.  He didn’t move his mouth or his head, letting her slot her lips over his.  It was a simple kiss, simpler than the first one she tried, but it was very obvious he didn’t enjoy it.  To be fair, Irene Adler rarely enjoyed kissing, but most people did and it was a good manipulative skill to have mastered.  She pulled back and sighed, “It’s a start.”

There was a smear of red on his lower lip, and she gestured at it.  “Tidy yourself, darling.”

Anton Chigurh didn’t say anything, just pulled out the white square he’d used to clean his hands after throwing Jim’s entourage out of the SUV, using a clean corner to scrub at his mouth until it was free of lipstick.  He folded the fabric back up, his fingers obviously practiced, and placed it back in his pocket.

“We’ve been sitting out here for too long,” she said quietly.  “We should get a room.”

“We aren’t staying here,” he said, putting his seat belt back on.  She followed his lead, and his eyes flickered to the cameras that lined every street corner.  “We have to abandon this vehicle.”

She sat quietly as he pulled away, driving a winding route through so many little side streets before he found a convenient little alleyway with no cameras and pulled the car over by the trash bins.  He got out first and started to sweep the interior of the car down with the sleeve of his jacket. She took her time unlatching the belt, standing unsteadily on the rough cobblestones. She was almost pathetically thankful she’d worn her flats.  In heels, she would have fallen straight over.

Without a word, he slammed his door and wiped the metal frame clean of his prints.  He walked around to her side and brushed her seat down, before closing her door and wiping it again as well.  He grabbed her arm, and she silently, carefully, arranged his arm so that she was hanging on his elbow. He threw her a sharp look, and she gave him a seductive smile, “Physical contact, _honey._  This is the version that isn’t suspicious.”

He just hummed slightly and allowed her to walk next to him.

She paused before they went on the street and stared at him, and he stopped as soon as she did, “Where is your gun?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he murmured, and her eyebrows raised up.  She hadn’t seen him hide it, but it wasn’t in his hand, and she wisely decided to shut her mouth as they turned out of the alley.

As they walked, Irene felt the buckshot wound flare up again, and her grip on his elbow tightened.  He shot her a questioning look, and she raised her head up to his ear, “Soften your eyes again and raise one side of your mouth, just a little.  In your line of work, is it safe for me to assume you know basic first aid?”

She pulled back and fluttered her eyelashes, giving him a warm smile.  His face looked all wrong, he wasn’t holding the tension of his expression in the right places, and she reached up with her free hand to smooth down his brown and gently adjust the side of his mouth.  When she looked again, it wasn’t right, but it was better. He tolerated her adjustments and then gave a short nod. “You are injured?”

“My leg.  You got it when you, well.  Before.”

He inclined his head to show he understood.  “I will need to remove the debris. Can you keep yourself quiet?”

“Part of the job, darling,” Irene said breezily.  The day had rolled over into twilight, and Kate still hadn’t called.  Neither had Moriarty, come to think of it.

Curious.

They passed by a chemist, and she saw Anton take note of the location.  There was a hotel across the street, small and built of red brick. It had a covering of thick, dark ivy on the front, and the sign was an old-fashioned wooden one.  No twenty-four-hour bar, no free wi-fi.

They went in, and Irene slipped her hand into Anton’s back pocket to retrieve her credit card and her ID.  His muscles tensed, but his face didn’t change. A start.

The interior was worn, all beiges and four clashing shades of burgundy.  The furniture was plain, wooden frames with stained cushions, and the plants looked to be in need of watering.  Irene quickly assessed it as the sort of place that wouldn’t ask too many questions, but wouldn’t go very far to protect her privacy, but would be cheap and wouldn’t bat an eye if she only used an hour or two of her stay.

Irene put on a strained smile, to better mask Anton’s perceived taciturn silence, and greeted the middle-aged clerk, “Hello ma’am.  Might you happen to have an open room?” She tapped the edge of her black card on the counter.

The clerk’s eyes, brown and tiredly lined in kohl, slid from Irene to the strong, strange, dangerous looking man behind her.  Immediately, Irene understood that this woman had been in hospitality for a long time, and her perceptive skills had been honed in a way that was not good for her if she wanted to live another day.  If Anton Chigurh had all but admitted she was the first person he’d left alive, probably directly related to a job, then it stood to reason that he routinely executed other people he was forced to interact with.

Unless he owned a residence in every city he traveled to, that likely included the help.

Irene leaned in closer, to get the clerk’s attention back, and whispered, “He’s a little tired, we’ve had a long day.  He looks grouchy, but underneath it all, he’s the biggest cuddler I’ve ever met.” This woman was good, but Irene was better.

“One or two beds?”  She asked, and both Irene and Anton noticed she had a light brushing of an Irish accent over her words.  Irene filed it away for later, and Anton forgot it immediately. He was already wishing for his tidy captive bolt killer, he could imagine the clean hole in the middle of her forehead.  They were harder to get in the UK and he couldn’t have brought his own for security purposes.

“Oh, only one!”  Irene turned and sent a flirtatious wink to Anton, who did little more than raise his head.  He was getting annoyed, she saw by the draw of his eyebrows, and she had to hurry this up. The clerk was taking her time, typing into the ancient little desktop behind the counter, and Irene made a split second decision.

She laid her ID flat on the table and turned to Anton, “Javier, darling, would mind running back to that chemist and getting me a few things?  You know how clumsy I am, and how forgetful! I think you’ll remember everything I need. I’ll finish up here and wait for you to return.”

His eyes flicked down to her leg, where the gap between the hem of her jeans and the top of her loafer, a thin line of blood was showing.  She patted her hair, _get me a hairbrush_ , and she smiled at him.

He opened his mouth, “Of course.  Darling. Wait in this area.” His eyes narrowed and the unspoken passed between them, _I will find you if you don’t._

He stiffly turned and walked out of the motel.  Irene watched him cross the street and open the glass door to the chemist, disappearing inside.

When she turned back to the clerk, the older woman’s eyes were narrowed and she was staring at Irene hard.  “Are you okay?”

Irene cocked her head and reassessed this woman.  Fluffy, thinning, dyed red hair, skin that was starting to wrinkle but had probably been lustrous in her youth, a few hairs sprouting from her chin, and those sharp eyes lined poorly with low-quality makeup.  Her uniform needed a wash, there was a stain on the collar of her dark jacket, and her button up blouse under it was cheap and ill-fitting. There was a hint of a gold chain at her throat, and Irene automatically assumed it held a cross or a medallion of a patron saint.  Irish Catholic.

“I’m fine,” Irene said, “but thank you for the concern.  My partner looks frightening, but he’s actually quite sweet.  He’s just not quite as sociable as me.” As long as he wasn’t strangling the checker at the chemist, if he came back with a little paper bag and no blood on him, everything would be fine.

“Well,” the clerk said doubtfully, “if you’re in trouble, you come to see me.  We get that sometimes.” She pulled out a packet of paperwork and flipped it open, sliding into an automatic walkthrough of the hotel’s policies.  Irene had to look at her false ID again to remember what name she was using this time, Penelope Miller, and signed everything appropriately.

The clerk slid a packet with two keycards in it across the counter, and reiterated the basic rules, as well as the checkout time.  Irene barely paid attention. She knew she and Anton would be gone before the sun came up, or even sooner if Kate would call.

Irene picked up the keycards, thanked the clerk, and went to perch herself on the edge of one of the chairs.

She paused.

Wait.

Was her phone on silent?

It was normally on sound and vibrate, but she’d smashed the volume button all the way down after she’d gotten it out of the safe, for fear of being found.  If her phone had been in Anton’s pocket the entire time, and he hadn’t looked at it, then there was a very, very good chance that Kate or Jim had called, messaged, left voicemails, and Irene felt her gut clench in a sudden spike of fear.

She had to look at her phone.

The wait seemed to take forever, but eventually, Anton came in, his face a dark thundercloud, and he was clutching a paper bag.

Wordlessly, she stood and walked up the flight of stairs, Anton following her almost soundlessly.  She located their room, and noticed his eyes slowly lighting upon each door in between their room and the stairwell.

Irene almost pinched herself.  ‘Don’t forget who this is,’ her mind whispered, ‘He’s dangerous, and he’ll kill you the instant you stop being useful.  He’s not a client. Get what you need and get out.’ Another part of her mind whispered, ‘What does he like? Can you figure it out?’

As soon as the door closed behind Anton, Irene pressed herself against him and with a strength belied by her frame, she shoved him against the wall.  “Do you know,” she said, conversationally, her hands patting down his pockets, “what my job entails?”

He let her hold him there, one eyebrow raised, and he said, “Sex work?”  The bag crinkled between his fingertips. His face didn’t change, but his eyes looked a little less dead, a little more interested.

She hummed and made a pleased noise as she located the long rectangle of her phone.  “In general, I don’t do sex in the most traditional sense of the concept. What I do is deal in exchanges of _power_.”  She wiggled the phone out of his pocket, and he made a low noise in his throat that echoed through her.  She looked at him through her low lashes, her pupils shrunk to small pinpricks as she looked at his face, which was throwing odd shadows in the deepening light of the evening.  His features were bathed in shades of red and orange, the shadows looking almost purple.

“I think,” and she slid her hand into his front pocket, finding another American quarter.  It was marked with the year 1987, and she held it up between two fingers. The textured edges were nearly worn smooth from use, and she could smell the pungent metal tang.  She continued, “That you also deal in _power_ , in death and the decision of it.”  She studied the quarter, and he was absolutely still against her.  His eyes, she’d noticed, had dilated just a little, and he was watching her very closely.  “Mary,” and she studied the way the jewel-colored light reflected off the coin, “told me that the coin toss meant you at least half wanted to shoot me.  I don’t think that’s true.” She held it up a little higher, and his eyes slid from her to the quarter, and she watched his face, catching every twitch of muscle, everywhere his eye focused, and she stepped back.

It was now or never.  Before she looked at her phone, before she found out if it was going to be Anton Chigurh or Jim Moriarty that was going to try and murder her, Irene Adler made an impulse decision.

She flipped the coin and smiled at him.  She saw, suddenly, that he had dropped the bag and his shotgun was in his hand.  It had taken less than a second for him to switch.  She wasn’t afraid. Either he’d shoot her and all of this would suddenly cease to be her problem, or he wouldn’t and she’d probably have a very interesting bout of intercourse.

Irene caught the coin with one slim hand and laid it gently on the back of her phone.  “Call it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay and the shortness of this chapter, I've been in a rut and I'm trying to climb out of it. Please let me know what you think!


	3. Momentum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains mentions of sexual situations!

A flurry of emotions crossed his face, the most she’d ever seen, but the ones they settled into were fury and curiosity.  There was an interesting mix of betrayal and resignation that flashed over, gone almost before she saw them, and she filed them away for later.  She smiled at him and he leveled the shotgun at her.

He knew better than to ask what they were flipping for.

They stood in the tableau for five minutes before his face smoothed out and he whispered, “Heads.”

Irene lifted her hand in a graceful arch and fluttered her eyelashes at him, “Tails.  I win.”

Anton Chigurh lowered the shotgun automatically.  He tilted his head and straightened himself to his full, imposing height.

Irene couldn’t help the way her eyes lit up.

“Sit on the bed,” she said firmly, no room for denial.  A command. An order.

And he had no choice, by his own code, but to obey.

He sat down on the thin cream-colored blanket, setting the shotgun beside him.  His face was smooth, expressionless. Irene plucked the paper bag from the store and tossed it at him.  He caught it neatly, the rustling paper loud in the small room.

“Open it,” she gestured at him, then crossed her arms.

Automatically, he pulled items out of the bag and arranged them in a line on the bed.  Tweezers. A set of needles and thread. A small first aid kit with bandages and gauze.  Neosporin. A package of cashews. A small paper receipt. A travel-sized black comb. He flattened the bag tidily and laid it at the end.  He laced his fingers and set them in his lap, then looked at her from under the loose fringe of hair on his forehead. He had wanted more suitable tools, but there was no time for a large distraction, so he’d paid cash for what he could get his hands on.

Irene stepped closer, right before him, and slipped the injured foot out of her shoe.  The lining inside was wet and stained from blood, but she just crossed her arms and lifted her foot, setting her toes on his knee.  “Get to work,” she nodded at her calf.

“I should wash my hands,” he intoned.  “Sanitation. We are not being pursued, we can take precautions.”  He waited for her to nod and lift her foot from his knee. He stood and went to the washroom, washed his hands with the plainly scented hotel-provided soap bar, dried them on a stiff towel, and came back.  He brought the towel with him, folded in half, and set it on his leg. This time, when she raised her leg again, he set the flat of her foot on his towel covered thigh and rolled up the leg of her pants to just above her knee.

He looked at her slim leg with nothing like desire in his eyes, nothing but cold clinical detachment.  They both stayed silent as he worked, unwinding the bandage Mary had set and prodding at the wound. Mary had cleaned the surface of it, but it was still warm and puffy.  She’d been running with the two pieces of shot still in her muscle, and he absently admired her stamina. Most people, not just women, would not have been able to run so far with such a wound.

Anton opened the first aid kit and located the little blister packet of ibuprofen, handing it to her.  “Anti-inflammatories. Those will help with the swelling.” She opened the packet and took the pills dry.  She slipped the empty packet into her pocket and crossed her arms again, watching him assess her wound.

He pulled the single pair of disposable rubber gloves from inside the little kit, pulling them on.  “All of these tools are new, which means they should be fairly sanitized. I would prefer to boil them, but we do not have the luxury.” Without any further warning, he opened the package with the tweezers and slid the prongs into the opening of the first entrance wound.  Irene immediately paled and all of her muscles tensed. A sweat broke out on her brow and she swallowed the urge to scream. She distracted herself by trying to break down the details of everything he was doing. He’d found tweezers that were long and thin, not the flat tip type she used to pluck her eyebrows.  The shot had not penetrated far, and he held her ankle steady with one large hand while the other quickly found and extracted the little metal ball. He held the tweezers up, and she opened one shaky hand. He dropped the blood coated ball into her hand, and murmured, “Don’t move.”

He repeated the process, and Irene took very deep breaths, filling her lungs and letting them out, refusing the hold the tension, feeling the pain and then letting it go.  Her body was damaged, and it had to hurt again so she could heal.

He handed her the second metal ball.  She held them closely, determined to try and get them made into earrings.

He stood suddenly, and she set her bloodied foot on the carpet.  He tsked, a look of annoyance coming across his face, and he reached down to lift her foot up and slide the already soiled towel under it.  He went to the bathroom, and she heard him running the faucet, and he came back with a wet face towel that had been lathered up.

“This is going to hurt,” it was the only warning she got before he reached down and scrubbed at the wound with the soaped cloth.  It somehow hurt more than before, and she groaned against it. The soap stung, and his movements were not gentle. After he was satisfied it was clean, he took the cloth, the lather now bright red, back to the washroom, where he spent several minutes with the faucet running.

She heard him stop the sink, and then the pipes groaned as he turned on the faucet in the bathtub.  He poked his head out, “Come.”

Irene limped to the bathroom, gripping the towel with her toes, and he didn’t help her over to the tub.  She sat on the edge and he unwrapped a little plastic cup, filling it with the hot water and running it over her leg.  His fingers were gentle this time, and he positioned her leg so he could rinse away all of the suds without getting her pants wet.

As he inched her foot over slowly, she tilted her head and asked him, “Have you ever had sex?”

He paused, the cup full of water, before he slowly poured it over the top of her calf, “Of course.”  The water ran foamy and red, so he filled up the cup again, and this time it splashed down the drain with no additional color at all.

She raised her eyebrow.  “Was it any good?” He reached for a hand towel and wrapped it around her leg, tucking it into place so that it wouldn’t fall off in the short journey back to the bed.  He grabbed another clean towel for his lap and stood up.

“It did what I needed it to do,” he said finally, looking down at her.  He left her to stand up on her own and get back to the main room, where he was waiting with the towel in his lap.  He was rifling through the kit for bandages and gauze, pulling out what he needed and setting it on his opposite leg.

She was trembling, and she’d left a damp trail on the carpet.  His lips pursed, but he didn’t say anything. She set her foot back on his leg, and he turned his eyes back to the tiny wounds.  “They won’t need stitches,” he said, after another minute of observation. He opened the antiseptic ointment and spread it over the gauze gently.  He laid the gauze pads over both wounds, winding the white bandages around them.

After he was done, he left her foot on his thigh, but curled his hand up to the top of her calf, tucking the ends of his fingers to rest on the sensitive skin on the back of her knee, and he looked up at her.  She looked at his face, all nose and eyebrows and big, dark eyes. He looked at hers, all sharp angles and red lips and calculating blue eyes that weren’t nearly as shuttered as she thought they were.

They moved, it seemed, at the same time.  He yanked on her knee, collapsing her down onto his lap, and she seized the sides on his head with her hands, drawing him up into a kiss that he actually participated in.  He let her open his mouth with her tongue, and he clutched her hips to his with his hands, her legs splayed on either side of him.

She shoved his shoulders, pushing him back onto the bed, and his fingers went to the buttons on his shirt as she worked at the zipper of his jeans.  He lifted his hips to help her as she slid them off and then his underwear, and he kicked off his boots and toed off his socks, landing everything in a messy pile at the end of the bed.  She had one hand around his cock before he could think about it, and he surprised himself by gasping at that first stroke, his eyes squeezing shut.

As a general rule, he didn’t enjoy sex.  It was never fulfilling for him, inevitable orgasm aside, and he never cared about his partners. He used it mostly as a tool of manipulation to get people to do what he wanted when someone hired him with explicit no-kill orders around specific individuals.  If maiming was also off the table, he could resort to sex. Male or female, to him it made no difference. To a very specific sort of person, he was attractive. Some people liked his capacity for violence, and they could perceive what he was regardless of whether or not he did anything to provide it at all.  For everyone else, he resorted to what little charm he had, his deep, accented voice, his physique, and sometimes alcohol or drugs, willingly imbibed. He’d never outright raped anyone, he always got permission, but he’d found orgasm denial a very good way to wring information out of most people.

But this, with Irene Adler, for the first time he wanted to fuck someone without an ulterior motive.  Having sex with her would not help him find the case, it would not help him complete his goals, it was purely selfish.  She was different, her reactions were different, and he got the sense that if he tried to shoot her again, she wouldn’t beg him for her life.  She would laugh and threaten him right back. That was very uncommon for someone who wasn’t in this business.

He thrust upward into her hand, noticing that she was still fully dressed and her sharp eyes were caught on his face.

Anton reached over and plucked the paper bag off of the bedspread, turning it over above his belly, and a single wrapped condom fell out.  She gently picked it up between her thumb and forefinger and smiled at him, “Naughty, presumptuous boy.” She released his cock and slapped his thigh hard enough to leave a red, hand-shaped imprint behind.  The muscle flexed, and he got harder.

She stood up and crossed her arms, “Take off your shirt.”

He sat up and yanked his sleeves down his arms, and she held out her hand.  He laid the dark fabric over her palm, and she softly commanded, “Lay on the bed and put your hands over your head.  Hold the headboard.”

Anton stretched himself out in a rather showy display, looking at his shotgun.  Irene, who had been staring at his girth as it came up to lay heavy against his belly, noticed.  She picked it up and deliberately laid it across the nightstand, the barrel pointed toward the door.  “Don’t worry,” she said, waiting for him to reach up and hold the headboard, “I know how to use one of those.  If anyone comes in, I’ll take care of it.” He didn’t believe her for a moment, but he allowed it anyway. She spun around and turned the latch for the deadbolt, then went and checked all of the windows, drawing the curtains over each one.  The room had already started to darken with the oncoming twilight, and now she could barely see him. She flicked on one of the cheap lamps, and the bulb droned.

When she came back to him, she thoughtfully hummed and let her eyes devour him.  He was bronzed all over, but there were clear marks that divided where his skin saw the sun and where it did not.  He was muscled, but not grotesquely so. He had the body of someone who knew hard physical labor and was not afraid of it.  He had scars, a network of them crossing his torso, his legs, his arms, and one that made her raise her eyebrow, a long shiny strip of raised tissue on his upper thigh, near his genitals, where someone had clearly tried to cut his artery.  It was next to a rough patch slightly larger than his thumb, where it looked like he’d been hit by the blast from a shotgun. With little fanfare, she took his shirt and tied his hands to his headboard tightly.

He became rigid and looked at her with no small amount of distrust, a snarl starting to form on his face, and she threw him an unimpressed looked before stepping lightly on the bed and settling her denim-clad hips over his softening penis.  “Do you want a safeword?” she asked him, courteously. She rolled her hips over him, coaxing more blood back into the member.

He shook his head once, sharply.

“Then let’s begin,” she said softly, rotating her hips over him again.

Her feet were bare, her hands were bare, and her pant leg was still rolled up to the knee, but other than that she was completely clothed.

He thrust up against her, impatient.  She squeezed her thighs together around his pelvis and shot him a look of warning.  “You’re not going to move. Not an inch. If you do, you’ll be punished.” He raised one eyebrow, a slightly annoyed look passing over his expression like a shadow, but he was still and pliant beneath her.

She reached up and idly placed her small hands on his throat, her nails digging in just a little.  “Have you ever strangled anyone before?” she asked lightly as if she wasn’t fucking him through her clothes.  He could smell her excitement, and he wanted to bury himself inside of her. He hated this state of arousal with no outlet, this inability to move, the powerlessness of it.  He could break out of her knots easily enough, or shatter the headboard, but that wasn’t the point. She’d won the coin toss. She’d won the right to take this power from him.  The seam of her pants pressed against the large vein on the underside of his cock, and he bit back a groan.

“Yes,” he said, no inflection but slightly breathless, and she gave a soft sound of acknowledgment before she pressed down firmly on the sides of his neck, right over his arteries, watching his face.

“Then you know there are two ways to do it.  Restrict the airway, or restrict the blood flow.  I find that restricting the blood flow to the brain heightens the sensations just a little bit more.  A little bit _sharper_.”  She pressed in and down harder, leaving the trachea alone, still working her hips in the same languid pace, and he found himself moaning quietly, his vision going spotty, and he twisted his hands against the restraints.  She’d tied him down better than he’d thought, if he was truly panicked, he could probably slip free, but this was a clever sort of knot.

As she pressed on him, his eyes saw another man, a deputy, nickel-plated handcuffs digging into his neck, and Anton shook the thought away.  That had ultimately been death from blood loss, the chain had slit open his throat and he’d bled out in less than a minute. This was closer to auto-erotic asphyxiation.  He’d staged more than one suicide this way, but he’d never tried it himself. When Irene did it for him, he found that he liked it.

His hips started to cant back against her, and just as he was on the verge of losing consciousness, she released him.

Irene leaned back up as he panted, pressing her fingertips into his abdomen as she continued moving.

“Normally,” she continued conversationally, “I would find out what sort of power you want to give me.  There would be several conversations and evaluations before you ever saw my bed. I specialize in some things, dabble in others.  I very rarely do anything with penetration, and when I do, I’m never on the receiving end. Truth be told, I’m gay.”

He looked at her in disbelief, one eyebrow raised, and she clucked her tongue, “Don’t tell me you’ve never had a man.  People like you and I, we do what must be done for our work.” She amended, thoughtfully, “The business of power. Life and sex, so deeply intertwined.”  She leaned in again, eyes lighting on him, “ _Have_ you ever fucked a man?”

“Yes.”  He thrust up against her again.  Despite her earlier promise, she didn’t seem to hold it against him.

“Did you kill him afterward?”  She pressed down nonchalantly.

He tossed his head to the side, “I don’t lay with someone if I can kill them.  Sex is the last resort. It has to be written in my contract that the person does not die by my hand.”

“Smart man,” she complimented him.  “Efficient. Difficult to distract. Jim really _would_ like you, I think.”

That was the end of their conversation, though Irene did make a few pleased noises during the act.  She wrung two moans and one more gasp out of Anton Chigurh, who otherwise gave no indication that he was being pleasured.  It had been quick, nearly perfunctory, the release necessary for both of them, and when Irene came, full of him, Anton followed her almost immediately.

Afterward, Anton had a ring of bruises around his neck, lipstick smeared on his face and chest, and they were both covered in a light sheen of sweat.  Irene’s clothes were folded and placed precisely on the corner of the bed, and as she climbed off of him, she reached for the condom first.

“I’d forgotten that sex with a man could be satisfying,” she breathed, her voice trembling just a little, as she tied off the condom full of his spend and deposited it in the trash can.  Anton made a note to throw it into a bin on the street, some blocks away. A used condom was evidence just begging to be used against him. His orgasm had been the most powerful he’d had in recent memory and he felt oddly tired.  It was almost as satisfying as killing someone with his bare hands. After he finished this one, he swore he would sleep for a week. He couldn’t wait to get out of this crowded city.

She dressed herself first, then untied him with brisk, efficient movements.  His shoulders and biceps hurt from yanking against the restraints, his back ached from how many times he’d arched it.  She tidied her hair and watched him sit up. When it became clear he wasn’t injured in a way she didn't intend, she turned her attention elsewhere.

He pulled the shirt on as she unlocked her phone.  When buttoned up to the neck, it would cover the bruises.

Irene sighed immediately.  “It was on silent this entire time.”

She had dozens of missed calls and multiple text messages.

Jim was livid, and his last message had been four minutes ago.

Kate was frightened, and her last message was timestamped too many hours past for Irene’s comfort.

“Oh my, my, my,” her eyebrows rose higher as she read the increasingly more inventive threats against her person from Jim.  “Well, it looks like I’ll be murdered one way or the other before this is over. I’m glad we had the opportunity to meet each other.”  She directed her last comment to Chigurh, who was silently sliding his pants on. Normally, he would prefer to shower after sex, but there wasn’t the time.  Their coupling had been fairly brief, but he detested personal time when he was on a job. He felt slightly annoyed by his indulgence and wanted to find his contact’s property as fast as possible.

“Where is the briefcase?”  His voice was directly behind her.  While she’d been looking at the phone, he’d finished dressing and grabbed his shotgun.  He leveled it at her now, and she sighed.

“Can’t even let a girl enjoy the afterglow, Mr. Chigurh?  Fine. Let me call the last person I thought had it.” She tapped Kate’s number and waited for it to ring.

She didn’t pick up.

“That’s a bad sign,” Irene murmured and tapped the number again.  Kate still didn’t pick up, but the phone rang until it went to voicemail.  It had power, but Kate either couldn’t or wouldn’t answer.

She turned to look at him, slapping aside the barrel of the shotgun like it was a gnat.  He was almost offended by her lack of fear. “If I call Jim Moriarty, he’s going to try to kill both of us.  If he has the case, are you going to kill me?” She looked at him closely.

He lowered the shotgun and considered her.  “Perhaps. I probably will at the end of the job, I don’t like to leave loose ends.  You refused your coin toss, and that bothers me. You’ve seen me.” Anton Chigurh never lied if he could help it.

Irene Adler gave him a wide smile, her lipstick smeared, and purred, “Oh honey, I’ve done more than _seen_ you.”  Then her face dropped into a speculative mask.  “What do I have to do to hire you?”

He shook his head, “I take on one job at a time.  This would directly conflict with my current one.”

“It’s a sub-contract,” she shot back, “Designed to make you more efficient, and preserve my continued existence.”

He shook his head again, the crease of his brow betraying his annoyance, “No.”

“Then who contracted you?  Our professional circles most likely overlap in more than one way, you’re an expensive commodity and so am I,” she pressed, “It’s probable that I know them.  Well, I’ll know what they like.”

Against his better judgment, but not against his particular principles, he murmured a name.

Irene smiled, and it was not a kind one.  “Would you look at that,” she purred, and never before had she so clearly resembled a satisfied cat, “I do know him.  _And_ what he likes.”

Anton Chigurh stayed quiet as Irene dialed a number from memory.  He raised one eyebrow as she shortly, and slightly inaccurately, explained her situation.  Her face held no expression as she handed him her mobile.

He listened to the man on the other end, keeping eye contact with Irene, and neither one of them moved for several anxious moments.  He made a noise of affirmation and ended the call before handing the phone back to her.

They were tensely silent for several minutes before Anton lowered the barrel of his shotgun to fully face the floor.  “You’re in the contract,” and he did not sound happy about it. How easy it was, for her to slip out of his lethal grasp.  His own code of conduct would allow no harm to her now.

Irene just smiled at him.  She’d quickly discovered that Anton Chigurh respected two things: fate and contracts.  She refused to play with the first, so she’d written herself into the second.

“Would you like to talk to my employer first?” She offered politely, extending the phone out again.

He took it without a second thought and hit the call button on the contact display for a man labeled only as ‘M’.

The phone rang twice before it picked up with a snarl, “I’m going to _skin_ you, Adler.”

“Oh,” Anton said flatly, “I do not think you will.”

There was silence on the other end.  He could practically hear Moriarty’s mind whirring, and he was definitely holding his breath.

“Do you know who I am?” Anton inquired as if he was curious.

“Mr. Anton Chigurh, I assume.”  Jim’s voice had smoothed out into something approaching professional.  “I’ve been waiting to meet you.”

He looked away from Irene, “So I’ve heard.”

“Is Miss Adler deceased?”  Jim sounded almost gleeful.

“No.  She knows my employer.”  Irene murmured a line to him, and he looked at her condescendingly for a moment before repeating it, “She said she hopes there are no hard feelings, and she looks forward to working with you in the future.”

There was a sharp bark of laughter at the other end.  It reverberated oddly, and Anton made note of it.

“Oh, I was warned about her,” his tone warmed up, “Tell her that once I get my property, or it’s value in cash, I’ll reconsider her _meal plan._ ”

Anton paused and raised one eyebrow.  “You don’t have it.”

Jim paused, “Adler doesn’t have it?”

Irene sat back and gave him a vacant smile.

Anton silently held the phone out to her.  She took it with two fingers and a mouthed word of thanks.  “Jim,” she sang and smiled widely at the heavy breathing on the other end.

“Don’t worry,” she soothed before he could speak, “Kate, my beautiful girl, mistakenly thought she was protecting me when she took it out of the house.  The last time I talked to her, she was being followed. I told her to go to a safe house, but now she isn’t picking up her phone. I want Kate, and there are two of you that want that briefcase.  Our paths are just headed straight for a collision, I propose that we make them a neat junction instead of a mess. Less fire, less blood, less unnecessary screaming.”

There was still no sound but Jim’s angry breathing.

She tried again, “You’re going to like Anton Chigurh when you meet him, Jim.  He’s _delicious._ ”

Jim’s voice was tight when he spoke, “Should I assume you wormed your way into him not killing you?  I was under the impression he killed _everyone._ That’s what my dear Miss Morstan has told me.  She was adamant about it, in fact.”

“I know what his employer likes,” she responded coyly.

“Of course you do, honey,” he shot back.  “You know what _everyone_ likes.”  He sighed, and she felt the violence in it, “Where was my property last, Adler?”  The was a noise like a knife digging into a plank of wood.

She gave him a rough approximation of a two block radius.  Anton didn’t blink, but he memorized it. “Oh, and Jim? I can’t assure you that dear Anton won’t shoot you and yours immediately.  You may want to be very cautious. He’s just as dangerous as you.” She sent Anton a smile that he didn’t return.

It was true.

Almost every time, Anton Chigurh was the most dangerous man in the room, if not the city.

“I resent the implication,” Jim shot back.  “Let me talk to Mr. Chigurh again, if you would.”

She handed the phone back and went into the bathroom to fix her hair and attempt to salvage her makeup.  He didn’t bother to be quiet, he knew she was listening closely.

“Mr. Chigurh,” Jim began, and Anton cut him off.

“No.”  He said it flatly.

“No to what?”  Jim’s voice went from professional to angry.  He disliked being interrupted, and he hated being denied anything.

“No to anything you might request of me,” Anton replied evenly.  “I will take Miss Adler to retrieve the case. If you want to be in my way, you are not in my contract, and there are plenty of things you deserve to die for.”

“Is that a threat?” Jim sounded between delighted and outraged.

“It’s a fact.”  Anton let the sentence rest heavy in the air.  “If you get the briefcase, I will get it back. I do not have business with you other than that.”

“But you could,” Jim tried to persuade him.

Anton sighed, “You don’t understand.”

He hung up the call and looked into the bathroom, where Irene was slowly combing her hair and looking at him in the mirror above the sink.

“He probably just wants you more, now.”  Irene winced as the teeth caught on a tangle.  “Moriarty likes a chase, from time to time. He’s seen what you can do, and he found you interesting.  It takes quite a bit for him to use that word. I’ve only ever heard him call one other person that.” She turned her attention back to her hair, fussing with the way it framed her face.

“Hmm.”  He looked her for a second and thought about shooting her.  The way her blood and tissue would splatter on the wall, the way the spray of shot would shatter the mirror, and he studied the way she was standing.  She would likely slam into the mirror, the pedestal sink was at an awkward height, the lip of it just slightly above her hips. She would fall to the right, he decided, and likely hit the closed toilet with enough impact to bruise her legs, then she would tumble down to the cheap linoleum.  If he left any of her skull intact, it would likely strike the edge of the bathtub and send an impact spatter of blood over the curtain, tile, and interior of the basin.

He could picture the way her body would slump against the low acrylic wall, her blood permanently staining the cheap caulk that lined the area where the edge of the linoleum was sealed to the bottom edge of the bathtub.

The entire scene played out in his head and he let out a deep sigh.  Irene had started to hum a waltz absently, and he forced himself to relax his grip on his shotgun.

The time to kill her had passed.  If he ran into her after the job was done, however unlikely that was, he could do it then.

But that would be in the future, which was always uncertain and never promised.

For the present, he had a job to do.

Anton started to methodically sweep the hotel room, a rare luxury in his line of work.  He gathered the bloodied towels, the makeshift medical instruments, the used condom, and placed all of it in one of the spare plastic bags under the open one from the waste bin.  He inspected the bedspread for any damp remainders of their earlier activities, and smoothed his hand down the cheap fabric once when he didn’t see any. He silently pushed Irene to the side in the minuscule bathroom, grabbing the bleach pen he’d stolen from the chemist, going around the drain the bathroom and the sink, anywhere else on a hard surface that would be more likely to hold any of her blood.  He capped the pen afterward, satisfied, and decided to let the solution sit for five minutes before he rinsed it off.

Irene had stepped into a corner of the room, and she raised her eyebrow as his eyes devoured every detail.

“Five minutes,” he belatedly seemed to realize she was there, and he gave her an inscrutable look before blinking and stepping past the doorway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this took forever for me to update. I'm not sure if I'll be continuing with this story, so I figured I should put what I have done of it up.

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't the end! Let me know what you think.


End file.
